UNFOLD YOUR MAT, UNFOLD YOURSELF

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Muscles

Yoga is
like a long car ride, and I feel like the kid in the back seat asking, "When are we gonna get there?"

I’m thinking I need some
more muscles.

Not necessarily big ones,
just more than I’ve got.

I remember when I started
yoga, I stood in a studio with a group of women who had probably been working
out most of their days.

It was day one for me.

Needless to say, it was
pretty intimidating to keep coming back, but I did and it was a good thing. The
practice has redefined me, literally.

Now I’ve got some muscles,
and they've appeared in much the same way as with most things in yoga -- they
kind of crept up on me. Seemed like suddenly, there they were! One day, the
mirror showed me muscles in my arms, my stomach, my legs, my back.

But the more I try to
advance, the more I feel my limits. In one class in particular, I spend lots of
time thinking if only I was stronger, I would get this.

This being
the arm balances, the handstands, the staying on one side with the weight in
one leg while doing all sorts of things before moving to the other side.

I mentioned lifting some
weights to the instructor after class one day. I’m thinking I’m not strong
enough, I said.

You can if you want, she
replied, telling me that she did, too. But you are strong!

Then I admitted to feeling
scrawny, and she suggested I email her to get rid of the crazies.

But it’s the crazies that
make me keep coming back. They are what make me want to go upside down, to lift
myself up on my hands with my legs here and there.

I am learning that, as with
most things in life, the strength has to come from the core.

The instructor talks about
zipping it up and putting the belly button to the spine. She calls to us about
our upward flying locks when we lift and balance and hang.

Still, in this class, I
feel my edge -- the place where I know I need to add something to what I’m
doing, so I can do more.

The other day, we were in
Navasana, or Boat pose. Sitting on our tail bones, our bodies are in a V shape
with our legs and backs straight and our feet in line with our noses. Our hands
reach up.

We hold for a count of
five.

Then, we cross, lock and
lift – placing our hands down on either side, crossing our legs and lifting
ourselves off the mat, swinging our feet underneath us. Ultimately, we are
supposed to land in Handstand, swinging ourselves under and through and
unfolding into the inversion.

We’re heading to Handstand
here, the instructor says. It doesn’t matter if you’re there yet.
Some of us will take another day or another month or another 10 years.

Huh?

No one really calls out in
this class but, on hearing this, I stood up.

What? I blurted
out. Do you know how old I’ll be in 10 years?!?

It doesn’t matter how old
you are, the instructor replied. It matters how strong you are.

I have these little purple
weights at home. They are eight pounds each. And I have some metal ones that
are five pounds each. And some little red three pounders. Surely something can
be done with them.

This yoga is called The
Rocket. It’s from a branch of yoga called Ashtanga, a style where the student
is given a sequence of poses, the progression through which has to be done in
order. The student cannot move to the next pose unless the previous one is
accomplished.

Rocket yoga came about in
the 1980s, and it teaches some of these poses without having to satisfy any
prerequisites. Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead dubbed it The Rocket because, in
his words, You get there faster.

So, in this class, it often
feels like day one again.

I am in there with those
who have been there awhile. And like when I first started yoga, it can be quite
intimidating but, like before, I keep coming back.

And the progress is slow.

So my plan is to lift those
purple weights, even though I think the key to my progression lies more in the
strength of my core.

I am being instructed, like
with anything else, to look inside to my very center.

Still, I kind of want to
rocket through that part, too. I keep waiting to hear some kind of hint about
how to better lift up. Surely, I might be missing some kind of clue.

But the only way to fly is
to lock and lift. And there’s no shortcut to doing that. The strength in my
core has to build in its own time.

So I keep practicing my
lock and practicing my patience.

And hopefully, if I’m
locked and lucky, I’ll be able to go back and through and upside down before
the 10 year mark.

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About Me

With the sole intention of exercising for the first time in her life, Anne was introduced to yoga in the fall of 2010 and was surprised at its transformative effects. There she was, outside of those physical and emotional comfort zones where she had been safely residing for some time. Anne further discovered in yoga a writing opportunity; her blog is a written manifestation of the impact of her practice. A native Washingtonian with a passion for writing, an interest in painting, and a background in public relations, she is presently an executive assistant at a health industry consulting company and a regular columnist on elephantjournal.com. Her two children live in New York City, where they practice yoga as well. Connect with Anne at Facebook.com/YogaSpeak.